Home >

Step Two: Improving The Game Day Experience

Football is more than a tailgate, of course. But it is more than a game as well and, in a way, Georgetown has never quite embraced the concept of what a College Football Saturday is all about.

To say this is mindful of what Georgetown is and what it is not. I honestly don't know what Georgetown would do if opposing fans started showing up on Wednesday afternoons for a few days of partying in the parking lot before Saturday's game. Thankfully for the department of public safety, Clemson or Florida State isn't close to a schedule at the unnamed Multi-Sport Field in our lifetime. But football should be more than a three hour line item in the University calendar as well.

This segment of the discussion looks at how football is promoted at schools Georgetown likes to consider itself among, that of the Ivy League. While there are academic peers no less comparable that do an even better job of selling the football experience (William & Mary, Villanova, Richmond), their relative budget superiority to Georgetown would discount them in the eyes of some readers. Georgetown's football spending ranks it equidistant between the Ancient Eight--four spend more, four less. This group, therefore, seems as good a peer group as any to discuss what's working there that isn't working--yet-- at Georgetown.

Brown: The Road Warriors
Annual Spending: $1,256,085
2006 Avg. Home Attendance: 6,517
4-Year Average: 6,410

With two Ivy titles in 50 years, no one would accuse Brown of being a football school, yet by the turnout of Brown alumni to the 2005 Multi-Sport debut, they certainly outshone the home folks.

Brown not only brought over 1,000 fans to the game (including its band) but hosted a huge tented reception on the edge of the McDonough parking lot that featured a catered luncheon for fans in attendance. Many of Brown's athletic events tie to receptions through its athletic fundraising arm, the Brown Sports Foundation. For example, the 2005 game at Georgetown was preceded with post cards to all local alumni in Washington advising them of the date and inviting them to the reception. The event sold itself.

Georgetown maintains similar receptions, albeit much smaller, before home games, but it falls on the shoulders of an overworked group of two or three at Hoyas Unlimited. If Georgetown can bring people back and make a day of it, it'll have to be with help from the Alumni Association as a whole.

Brown also utilizes a marketing and promotions team. "The Brown Athletic Marketing & Promotions office aims to enhance the overall experience for our student-athletes and fans by maximizing attendance at our home events, increasing the awareness and exposure of our teams, offering valuable & interactive marketing platforms for our sponsorship partners, and by enhancing the atmosphere and entertainment value at our athletic contests, reads its web site. Georgetown's marketing, on the other hand, is almost exclusively devoted to men's basketball.

Home games also bring in fans for Brown, sometimes with a little ingenuity. Last season's homecoming with Cornell featured a bus trip of fans to the game from Cape Cod, co-sponsored by both the Brown club and the Cornell Club of Cape Cod. Could the Georgetown and Yale clubs of, say, Baltimore or Richmond work a similar arrangement?

Columbia: "Quality Demographics"
Annual Spending: $1,971,707
2006 Avg. Home Attendance: 4,612
4-Year Average: 4,963

No school, not even Georgetown, has a tougher assignment to build fan spirit than Columbia, a school which has almost defined a losing tradition in football. Since Georgetown revived football in 1964, it has posted winning seasons in 22 of 43 seasons. During the same period, Columbia has posted just three winning seasons, failing to win more than two games in any season from 1979 through 1991.

Better times are ahead for the Lions, as its 5-5 record in 2006 showed. To get more fans on board, Columbia officials have undertaken an aggressive marketing and sponsorship program to get fans to make the trek to 215th St. in Manhattan to see the games.

"[Sponsors] are interested in our audience, because we have a quality demographic," assistant athletic director Barry Neuberger told the Columbia Daily Spectator. "They're interested in the Columbia audience because it provides value for them."

In addition to increased corporate sponsorship, promotional activity for the 2006 season included a free picnic area before each game, beer sales to wrist banded fans over 21, complimentary barbecue grilling areas, and extended online radio and video broadcasts.

Four of the five home games drew good crowds and Lions appeared to top an average of 5,000 for the first time in over a decade, but a home game against an unfamiliar opponent on the weekend of Rosh Hashanah brought a season low of only 2,262 to Baker Field on Sept. 23, 2006. That opponent was Georgetown.

Cornell: Think Local
Annual Spending: $1,441,074
2006 Avg. Home Attendance: 5,008
4-Year Average: 6,637

If you think it's tough getting fans to Washington, think about Ithaca, NY. The Cornell game experience must reach out not only to students, but local residents and to alumni that may often live far from Lake Cayuga's waters.

Local marketing is a big key to Cornell's efforts. Its game programs are full of local advertising that not only pays for the programs, of course, but reestablishes ties with fans. If a family is coming to the game, they're likely to spend money in the community and identification with the team makes good business sense.

Granted, Ithaca doesn't have the Redskins or the ACC fighting for their entertainment dollar, but Georgetown does not exist on an island, either. Effective marketing to the local community is not only a financial gain but brings in more local fans to support the team going forward.

Dartmouth: Selling "Free"
Annual Spending: $1,624,336
2006 Avg. Home Attendance: 5,597
4-Year Average: 5,357

OK, so Ithaca isn't Washington. Neither is Hanover, NH.

Like Georgetown, Dartmouth has seen better days in football and its attendance has slipped over the years--so much so, Dartmouth recently razed much if its visitors stands and reduced capacity to 13,000 at Memorial Field, now the smallest of the Ivy stadia. But unlike Georgetown, the tradition of the Indians (er, Big Green) is woven into the Dartmouth social fabric. Dartmouth green is as much about the color of the gridiron as any campus tradition.

One of the ways Dartmouth is battling the declining attendance numbers is to involve more family-friendly promotions, many of which involve the word "free". In 2006, every home game had a promotional tie, such as a free schedule poster, free admission for kids, free car decals, and reduced prices for families.

Dartmouth also relies on the media to promote its program. At least two games a year are broadcast on television to a statewide audience, and while one usually involves a sizable loss to the University of New Hampshire, it keeps the visibility of the team to its regional fan base. Every time I hear some local Washington personality express surprise that Georgetown is playing football, I have to shake my head and why they don't know, and what Georgetown is not doing to remind him of that.

Harvard: Loyalty Pays
Annual Spending: $2,090,271
2006 Avg. Home Attendance: 15,548
4-Year Average: 13,457

As is the case with the Ivy League, Harvard enjoys a number of advantages that its Ivy brethren do not, and its marketing efforts are a little more low-key than other schools.

As far as promotions, go Harvard provides a Fan's Center, link on its web site, with information on everything from cheerleaders to hospitality tents at games. Football is Harvard's only revenue sport, and it enjoys a fairly loyal fan base, even among many students.

Harvard also benefits from a regional schedule. Four of its five home opponents each year are generally within driving distance, helping keep crowds healthy on both sides of the stadium. Outside of a series with William & Mary in the 1980's, Harvard hasn't played an opponent south of the Mason-Dixon line since 1947, and last crossed the Mississippi River for a game with Stanford in 1949.

Pennsylvania: Getting The Message Out
Annual Spending: $1,497,051
2006 Avg. Home Attendance: 12,021
4-Year Average: 11,852

Attendance at Penn games has fallen about 25% over the last ten years, and that university is employing what might be called a full court press (to mix sports metaphors) to turn the tide.

Every home game has some promotion tied to it: Community Night, Staff Appreciation Day, Family Weekend, Homecoming and Student Appreciation Day. A children's area is set up before each game, while the school makes frequent use of local TV and radio coverage. Additionally, Penn (as do Brown and other Ivy schools) provides an easy opt-in e-mail link for fans to get regular updates on the team. Georgetown maintains a similar e-mail program, but it is not well promoted outside the Gridiron Club.

In addition to boosting attendance, Penn is active in building corporate sponsorships. An 11 page guide is posted on its web site, with the strategy of leveraging its various sport-related products, football, basketball, Penn Relays, etc. into a unified marketing opportunity for clients.

Princeton: New Stadium, Old Challenges
Annual Spending: $1,801,579
2006 Avg. Home Attendance: 12,220
4-Year Average: 12,048

It was declining attendance that led Princeton officials to raze aging 45,000 seat Palmer Stadium for the smaller 27,000 Princeton Stadium. Following an opening season which saw Princeton average nearly 23,000 a game, attendance has slid back to where it was in the last days of Palmer.

Princeton fans tend to turn out for the Ivy games, but non-conference games draw about 8,000 a game despite nearby teams like Lehigh and Lafayette. Similar to Penn, Princeton is active in kid-friendly promotions and corporate sponsorships.

Yale: Bringing Them Back
Annual Spending: $2,155,095
2006 Avg. Home Attendance: 18,562
4-Year Average: 19,424

Any direct comparisons between Georgetown and Yale would, at this point, be foolish. After all, Yale plays in a historic stadium that could hold the MSF 30 times over, and it averages almost twice as many in one game that Georgetown seats in an entire season. Yale has maintained much the attendance base that many Ivy schools have lost over the years, however, in part, by always promoting the game day experience.

Yale publishes a fan guide that not only helps with parking, but introduces fans to a wide variety of events, football and non-football related, for guests to take advantage of. Fans can, for example, pick up complimentary food and snacks at one tailgate, while the Yale Football Hospitality Program gives non-alumni a chance to set up their own parties at the games. The school even maintains a Q&A booth, titled "The Doghouse", where fans can inquire as to any game day issues.

The Bulldogs haven't sold out a game since 1983--of course, selling 70,000 tickets in I-AA is a huge reach. By making fans welcome, however, they are building the base of the next generation of fans, the fans that will still be there as students come and go.

If there's one lesson that comes out of the marketing and promotions aims of these schools, it's one that applies just as much along Nassau Street and it does along M Street: college football is part of the fabric of University life, and ought to be embraced as such. You don't need 100,000 people in the neighborhood to have a great time at a game, and the market value of events that bring families back to the Hilltop to visit, to say hello to old friends, a lunch at the Leavey Center, and a sunny afternoon at the MSF is well worth the institutional expense. No visitor to Georgetown University should arrive on campus on a Saturday this fall and not know there's a football game going on...and no one should feel unwelcome to stop by and join the fun.

Of course, life's too short to expect people to drop everything to show up for a game, and by attendance at the eight schools listed above, there are still more empty seats than occupied ones at Ivy league stadia. But what the Ivies understand is something Georgetown needs to embrace as well: it's no longer just the game that attracts fans, it's the experience. You don't have to be 1,000 miles away to appreciate it. Some of Georgetown's biggest fans may be just around the corner.

"At Georgetown, you have two things working against you," said Sports Network columnist Matt Dougherty. "The football program doesn't have a history of success, so it's hard to get the alumni and even current students excited. And you are in a large metropolitan area where the Georgetown football game will never be the marquee event on a Saturday. So you have to play to the family that wants to take their kids for a fun experience at a reasonable price. Have themes working at the games, get the crowd involved by shooting T-shirts, playing fan games at halftime, etc...kind of like the experience at a college basketball game."

CSN's Chuck Burton goes a step further.

"You need to get Georgetown's name out there [in the community]," he said. "If I were Georgetown's SID, for example, I'd already start challenging George W. Bush and John Kerry to come to see Yale play Georgetown on September 15th. It can be sophomoric; it might be impossible; but with so many connected congresspeople and alumni, there's no reason why a promotion like that couldn't work. Shoot big; give folks who normally wouldn't be involved a reason to think about Georgetown football."

There are a number of Yalies down the block and around the District--certainly, Georgetown can't get outnumbered by the visitors in blue, can it? There are 10,000 Yale grads in the greater Washington area, but three times as many Georgetown alumni. The challenge, then, is to get the word to our 30,000 before Yale gets it to theirs. And soon.

June 19: Bringing back the locals.
To participate, contact us.